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Fraud0 has raised $7.0M across 1 funding round.
Key people at Fraud0.
Fraud0 has raised $7.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Based in Munich, Germany, Fraud0 provides an artificial intelligence powered software as a service platform designed to detect and eliminate bot traffic, click fraud, and fake impressions in digital advertising campaigns. The company offers real-time analysis of website traffic and ad verification tools to help advertisers, agencies, and platforms protect their marketing budgets and maintain accurate analytics data. The enterprise operates on a subscription model, currently holds 66 reviews on the G2 software marketplace, and has raised €6 million in total funding to support the development of new cybersecurity products and market expansion. Fraud0 is backed by lead investor Signals Venture Capital and serves a corporate customer base that includes retail brands such as Apollo Optik, Ulla Popken, and AboutYou. Currently led by Chief Executive Officer Tilman Pfeiffer, the organization was founded in 2020.
Fraud0 has raised $7.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $7.0M Seed in August 2023.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1, 2023 | $7M Seed | — | Creandum, Lakestar, Next47, Partech Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures, Heinz Raufer, Sven Rittau, Victor Jacobsson | Announced |
Key people at Fraud0.
Fraud0 has raised $7.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Fraud0's investors include Creandum, Lakestar, Next47, Partech Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures, Heinz Raufer, Sven Rittau, Victor Jacobsson.
# Fraud0: High-Level Overview
Fraud0 is an AI-powered bot and ad fraud detection platform that helps businesses identify and block fraudulent traffic in real time.[1][3] The Munich-based startup detects invalid traffic across digital advertising, e-commerce, travel, and insurance sectors by analyzing over 4,000 data points—including connection speed, mouse movements, and user behavior patterns.[1] Founded in 2021, Fraud0 serves advertisers, agencies, and platforms seeking to protect their ad budgets and improve marketing ROI by eliminating fake clicks, bot-generated impressions, and other fraudulent activities.[5]
The company addresses a critical pain point: businesses waste significant marketing budgets on fake traffic that appears legitimate but generates no real value. Fraud0's solution provides transparency into traffic quality, automatically blocks bad actors in real time, and delivers cleansed analytics data for smarter decision-making.[2][3] Early customers include established brands such as Aboutyou, Apollo Optik, and Ulla Popken, with user testimonials reporting fraud detection rates as high as 19% of paid campaign traffic.[1][2]
Fraud0 was founded in 2021 and has rapidly gained traction through strategic partnerships and investor backing.[1] In a significant validation moment, the company secured six million euros in Series A funding led by Signals Venture Capital, with participation from notable entrepreneurs and investors including Daniel Johannsen (co-founder of Usercentrics), Sven Rittau (CEO of K5 and co-founder of Zooplus), and Alexander Gösswein (former Criteo manager for Europe).[1]
The company strengthened its credibility by partnering with Dr. Augustine Fou, a world-leading ad fraud researcher who holds a PhD from MIT and has authored over 1,500 academic articles on cybersecurity.[1] Dr. Fou now serves as a key advisor alongside CEO Tilman Pfeiffer, bringing deep domain expertise and academic rigor to the platform's fraud detection algorithms.[3]
Fraud0 operates at the intersection of two powerful trends: the explosive growth of digital advertising spend and the parallel rise of sophisticated bot networks targeting that spend. As businesses allocate increasingly large budgets to programmatic advertising and performance marketing, the cost of ad fraud—estimated in billions annually—has become impossible to ignore.
The company's emergence reflects a maturing cybersecurity market where fraud prevention is shifting from reactive (detecting fraud after the fact) to proactive (blocking it in real time). Fraud0's AI-native approach aligns with broader industry movement toward machine learning-based security solutions. Additionally, the startup benefits from heightened regulatory scrutiny around data quality and advertising transparency, which creates demand for tools that provide verifiable, clean analytics.
By attracting top-tier European venture capital and partnering with a world-class researcher, Fraud0 is helping establish ad fraud detection as a critical infrastructure layer—similar to how DDoS protection became essential for web platforms a decade ago.
Fraud0 is well-positioned to become the standard for bot detection in digital marketing. The company's six-million-euro funding round and expert partnerships suggest investor confidence in both the market opportunity and the team's execution capability. With plans to expand into new markets and develop adjacent cybersecurity products, Fraud0 is moving beyond point-solution status toward becoming a comprehensive fraud prevention platform.[1]
The startup's trajectory will likely be shaped by three factors: (1) continued sophistication of bot networks, which will drive demand for more advanced detection; (2) regulatory pressure on ad platforms to reduce fraud, which could create tailwinds for third-party verification tools; and (3) consolidation in the ad tech space, which may create acquisition opportunities or partnership channels.
As digital advertising budgets continue to grow and fraud becomes more sophisticated, companies like Fraud0 that combine cutting-edge AI with domain expertise will become indispensable infrastructure for the modern marketing stack.
